If I were running a commercial software firm and software made by random people in their spare time compared pretty well with my pricey software, I would be a little concerned.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Dec 6, 2007 1:08 PM, Kyle Klipowicz <
<a href="mailto:kyleklip@gmail.com">kyleklip@gmail.com</a>> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;">And this is precisely the unfortunate reason why the open source world
<br>will (almost) always lag behind the commercial world of consumer<br>software. When developers make their bread and butter based upon if<br>the consumer buys, they're more likely to pay attention to and<br>implement the wishes of their users. Take Ableton. They actively parse
<br>their online forums for feature requests...and then implement them<br>when a critical mass is reached.<br><br>There are some exceptions in the FOSS world. Ubuntu is quite user<br>friendly (with the support of a large endowment from a very wealthy
<br>organization with a charter specifically devoted to bringing Linux to<br>the non-programmer set of the world). Firefox is giving IE a run for<br>it's money (although the primary codebase from FF comes from the old
<br>commercial, closed source Netscape).<br><br>I know that Hans' statement re everyone becoming a developer is true<br>in theory, but in reality people who want to rapidly prototype a<br>project with something like Pd or Max are using these applications
<br>precisely because they do not want to code in C.<br><br>After reading Marius' post re GEM vs. Jitter, it is painfully apparent<br>that the capitalist/consumer model of software engineering has a few<br>aspects to it that are difficult for the FOSS community to compete
<br>with. Namely monetary and human resources and the external pressure to<br>meet the requests of the user in order to ensure a continuous flow of<br>financial support. When you code for a hobby or yourself, it is<br>difficult or even impossible to be bothered with these things, and
<br>rightly so. Without compensation, there's often little scope (or time)<br>outside one's own projects for developers in the FOSS world. This is<br>unfortunate, but as I see it, true.<br><br>Question is, what can be done to change this or compete? Or should Pd
<br>just become the thing that hobbyist programmers use, while Max takes<br>the stage as the "serious" tool for rapidly prototyping interactive<br>A/V artworks? I hope that this is not the case...<br><br>No flames meant in this mail, just compassionate thought-mulling.
<br><br>~Kyle<br><div class="Ih2E3d"><br><br></div></blockquote></div><br>